Romney: I can win on the economy

The 2012 presidential campaign is going to be all about the economy — right in Mitt Romney's wheelhouse, the former Massachusetts governor told supporters on a conference call Monday.

People ask, Romney said, "'how do we know you're going to win, Mitt? What's it going to take to win?' The answer right now is the America people, more than any other single issue, they care about the economy."

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"That is my wheelhouse," Romney said on the public call. "That is what I know and what I do. I've had experience in turning things around that are going in the wrong direction...I will get America on the right track again."

Romney spoke from Las Vegas, where hundreds of his top bundlers, financiers and supporters have descended for a massive call day fundraising drive. Romney has yet to make a formal announcement that he's running — he formed an exploratory committee in April — but his comments from Nevada are the strongest acknowledgment yet that a campaign is inevitable.

"I know a lot of people have been asking, 'when is this campaign really going to get going? When do the gears get into place?' And the answer is today," Romney said on the call. "This is the time that we are, if you will, activating our friends across the country."

"This for us is really a chance to kick off our effort and to let people know that we're engaged in the fundraising process and that we're underway," Romney said of the event. "We are hoping that they will be able to record a very successful event...that will communicate to people at large that this is a credible and effective campaign."

He urged supporters to donate as little as a dollar to help his campaign get started. "Each person donating sends a statement, I think, across the nation that we're serious and that this campaign is going to be successful," Romney said.

On the call, Romney addressed what he identified as two possible problems facing his candidacy — whether he can win and whether his record on health care is a disqualifying factor — and previewed the overarching message for his campaign.

The unsuccessful 2008 candidate also took shots at President Barack Obama — and said that if the unemployment rate doesn't change, all four years of Obama's presidency will have seen unemployment above 8 percent.

"He set the 8 percent as his ... pass fail mark and he's failed," Romney said. "He can't blame it on George W. Bush anymore...because of that, I think he's in trouble."

"I don't think he really loves free enterprise and capitalism," he added. "I think he has disdain for the free markets. I think he has disdain for the states."

Romney said he chose to hold his fundraising call day in Nevada — instead of Massachusetts, where it was held during the last campaign — because Nevada is an early primary state and because its economy is struggling.

He took a thinly veiled shot at comments Obama made last year that caused a local stir, when he said that Americans don't go to Vegas when economic times are tough.

"President Obama was disrespectful to Nevada early on, suggesting people should not attend meetings and events out here," Romney said. "We disagree."